I had a nice email from Anuj Agarwal (the founder of Feedspot) recently to say that P2PBlog.co.uk had been included in their list of the top 100 Peer to Peer Lending blogs. At first I thought… how did they find 100 Peer to Peer Lending blogs? Read more “P2PBlog Mentioned Among Top Blogs”→

Property Moose is one of the UK’s largest Property Crowdfunding platforms. I’ve reviewed them in more detail in this review and they continue to be one of my largest personal P2P/crowdfunding investment platforms. I spoke with the founder, Andrew Gardiner, on a new type of loan investment they’ve just launched.

The Existing Investment Mix

Most of the investments to date on Property Moose are equity investments in individual properties (‘SPV’s). A few of the more recent investments were split into an equity part and a loan part. The equity investors took on more risk, but had the potential for higher returns. The loan part investors had a fixed rate of return but were first in line to get back their capital.

Compared to other P2P lending sites, Landbay’s returns are lower: 3.43%-3.75%. The borrowers themselves only pay between 3.88% and 4.65%. This is due to the type of loans they offer: long term loans secured against BTL property. Loans are at a max Loan to Value of 80% with at least 25% margin of safety between the interest payments and rental income. On top of this, Landbay have additional provisions which allow them to step in and become a receiver of rent if necessary, and maintain a provision fund.

So in terms of the loans themselves, at least for a non-FSCS protected P2P lending site, it sounds quite safe.

I’ve had a few people contact me via the contact email for this blog. Their shared concern was that Landbay’s loan origination was too low, and that although the loans may be relatively safe, there was a higher platform risk with how they saw things were going. This post aims to understand these concerns and then try to find out what’s really happening at Landbay. Read more “What’s happening at Landbay?”→

Today, the Chancellor Philip Hammond released his first budget. I’ve been through the key points to see what impact, intended or unintentional, it will have on the UK alternative finance sector. The short answer is, P2P Lending: not much, Crowdfunding: possibly negative. Read more “The Budget 2017 & Alternative Finance”→

A recent article on the Peer-to-Peer Finance News suggested that RateSetter’s generous £100 welcome bonus for new customers was coming to an end. A favourite of newbies to P2P lending, the new customer bonus gives an effective 10% return on a £1,000 deposit with a well-established platform even before interest returns. Read more “RateSetter Ends Welcome Bonus Midnight October 6th”→